trauma

Saturday, November 5th

Today is the day that my face will be up on a digital billboard in my town! I was lucky that the writing community I am in wanted to advertise in a major city near me, and they were generous enough to give me a billboard right in my town too so I didn’t have to go an hour and a half away to see it! It will be playing with other ads, and it is only for today! The billboard says: “What Makes You Strong? Enter our writing contest on TheUnsealed.com,” and then has my happy face on there! I am so happy that I joined this community and have been able to get some of my writing out into the public eye; this whole experience has been wild, as it has brought up things within me that I hadn’t truly realized before.

I always have had trouble celebrating myself, and I also hate being the center of attention (although apparently as a Leo I should love the spotlight), so being excited about something so public and personal felt weird to me. I know I am allowed to feel from this and I honestly do, but I realized that I have a habit of downplaying any exciting things or achievements in my life. When I graduated from community college, with a degree that I paid for with no loans or help from FAFSA, I remembered saying to my boyfriend: “Is it weird that I am not that excited? Like I don’t even want walk the stage.” He was encouraging and understood that school had been stressful and it was probably just a relief to be done, but also made sure I knew that he was super proud of me and I should be too. I did end up walking the stage, and both of our families were there to celebrate me which made me feel so loved.

While realizing that I have trouble celebrating myself, I also was connecting that to how I also have trouble truly looking at my life traumas as… well, traumas. I can honestly say that it was only within the last year or so that I truly felt validated in feeling traumatized, and it happened while listening to Gabrielle Bernstein on her “Dear Gabby” Podcast. She was talking about how everyone has trauma, and then talked about “Big T” traumas and “Little T” traumas. An example of a “Little T” trauma would be if you were standing in line to get food as a child and another classmate came over and called you fat. Even though this may not sound like a big deal, this thought can live in your brain and if you get stuck on that thought it can become all you think about and completely diminish any self-love or self-esteem that was there. But what struck me in this podcast was when she listed “having an alcoholic parent” as a “Big T” trauma… because I had two. Even though I had been going to therapy for years at this point, it still never hit me like it did in that moment. I had “Big T” trauma that I was dealing with, and I should be so proud of how far I’ve come. As I sit here and write this today, I am very proud of all of the work that I have done, and I look forward to seeing my continued progress.

I can say that as I am continuing this healing journey, I have moments of grieving where I feel so sad and distraught about the fact that I have been so distant from my own feelings and presence. But in those same moments, I am very present in those feelings, which makes me feel almost happy in a way, because that means I am here now. What I mean is that I am present with those hard emotions and I am feeling them all the way through, and that in and of itself is being present. I still struggle with celebrating myself, but I find when I am writing, it tends to come through me. There is that confident, higher self that is within me and she is working hard to break through. Together we are un-learning bad habits, re-wiring old thoughts, and immersing ourselves in podcasts and books about healing and mental health. I am the one who is writing my blog posts, I am the one who is going to therapy, I am the one who is doing all of this hard work, and I am doing it for me. I deserve to feel the love for myself that others can so effortlessly give to me, and I deserve all of the happy things that are in my life.

clouds ☁️

Need your help/support

Hello to my lovely followers! I just want to say I appreciate all those who follow me on here and I am so happy that I have this space for myself and others! I recently joined a writing community and entered a writing contest where the winner is determined by how many votes my letter gets.

If you have a chance, I’d love if you’d click the link and read my letter, & if you like it you can vote for it! Thank you all in advance for your time and support!

https://theunsealed.com/contest-submissions/dear-me-thank-you

Father’s day

Father’s day has never been my favorite. I never feel like I can say that since I know there are people out there who have lost their dads, and I also know there are people who are close with their dads who are still here. My dad and I have an improved relationship now that I have been out of the house for about six years now, but it’s still not my favorite.

I do love my dad, but I cannot say that I really like him entirely. I’d like to say I have forgiven him for what he’s done in the past, but that’s probably a lie and I definitely haven’t forgotten. I don’t sit and dwell on the past anymore like I used to, but I also won’t pretend that my dad was a great parent.

Apparently in my younger years he was very involved and happy to be around me, but once I turned seven everything changed. My dad’s cousin brought us a computer for my seventh birthday, and although it was for me, my dad said it was for him. I was able to use the computer sometimes, but for the most part my dad got lost in music and MySpace. When he’d get home from work, he’d go right to the computer and stay there for the remainder of the evening.

Another thing that happened was my grandpa (mom’s dad) died when I was seven. This sent my mom spiraling into alcoholism which my dad willingly followed her. My parents drank every single night, and although this was to “help my mom sleep,” instead it left me with restless nights of listening to their drunken rages against each other. The weekends were always worse because the drinking started earlier.

I’m now twenty-five, and they still drink every night. Luckily I moved out at 19, and it took time to stop the obsessive worrying about if my mom was okay or not, but now I know it is not my problem and there is nothing I can do about it. People will only change if they want to. Not once have they tried to get sober, and I hope they realize that this will have quite an effect on them once I decide to have children, because I cannot trust them to watch my child with their alcohol addiction.

Recently during a phone conversation, my mom tried to tell me that my dad “was nice for the most part,” to which I simply told her that was not true. I reminded her of the time where during an argument my dad screamed at me and said “who pays for the health insurance that you’re about to need if you don’t shut the f*ck up.” Of course she didn’t remember this (as they both are always drunk) and started apologizing. The intention was not to guilt trip, I was simply stating a fact.

Just because I have grown up and done well with my life, doesn’t mean that we can just pretend the traumatic shit that happened didn’t happen. Yes, I have moved on and the relationships have been civil, however that does not erase history. I don’t really prefer to talk about what happened with my parents, because my dad lives in denial and my mom lives in guilt; it’s not worth having a conversation over.

Despite everything I have been through, I did see my dad for father’s day, and I also gave him a gift that I made him which he appreciated. I do wish that he would do some self-reflection and realize what he did and how he needs to change, but at the same time it’s not my problem.